It's been a long time.......

Wow, how time flies! It has been a long time since our last post and quite a lot has gone on. The girls made good use of their Easter gifts of umbrellas and matching boots playing in a gentle rain one afternoon. It reminded me of the many times my brother and I spent with Lisa and Tim Rardin back in Marysville playing in the rain while our parents sat on the front porch watching us. We played in the rain all the time and sailed sticks and paper boats down 5th street "hill" all the time! What fun we used to have!



One of Maggie's classmates had a birthday in late September that was celebrated at his grandparent's house. Maggie and I were VERY happy to see that they had a horse!! Madelyn loved him too (Lucky Dollar is his name) but I think was a bit overwhelmed by his size. The girls had a great time celebrating not only Brock's 5th birthday, but his sister Jada's 2nd birthday. I run into Brock's grandmother when dropping off and picking Maggie up from pre-school and when she found out Madelyn's birthday was close to Jada's, she invited her too!








Having hot dogs, chips and lemonade! The boys ate at one end of the table and the girls at the other. They all played the games though! They had a balloon pop, pin the tail on the donkey (which I had to do since Maggie wouldn't put the blindfold on and Madelyn was too short!), a pinata, hayride and horse ride! They had cotton candy and cake too! The girls didn't want to leave, and if I would have had a pair of jeans, I would have stayed and ridden Lucky Dollar!




Holding on for dear life!!!













Amber's artwork in the garage. She is very talented and creative. We had to get a picture of it before it disappeared from being rolled over!













Look!! I'm three now! We celebrated Madelyn's 3rd birthday on the 22nd. Where does the time go? She got a Wonder Pets fly boat and her favorite things were her Hannah Montana doll and blanket. We still can't figure out where the obsession for Hannah Montana came from, we don't watch the show!












Madelyn loves lady bugs so I got creative with her cake.



It is amazing to see how quickly the landscape around here changes. What used to be so lush and green is now shades of brown and very dry. Our neighbor works for Pioneer and one afternoon we went with him to one of the fields they were harvesting. Maggie and I got to ride in a corn-picker and watch them off-load the corn. We really enjoyed ourselves and I'm still amazed that there is so much to learn about corn! Hopefully we'll be able to let Madelyn and Amber ride before all the corn is harvested. They are late this year due to the terrible spring we had.

The girls are excited for Halloween. Amber is going to be Silver Mist, the water fairy from Tinkerbell. Maggie is going to be a cheerleader and Madelyn is going to be a ladybug! I think that dad is going to take them and mom will pass out candy. This will actually be the first year that we have ever passed out candy. When we lived in Ohio, we lived at the end of a dead-end street and nobody came down there! I've been talking to the neighbors and there is apparently a lot of traffic on our street!

Amber is doing well in school. She brought home her interim report yesterday and had all A's and B's with one C. Maggie is loving pre-school and Madelyn (and Mommy) love their "Teensy Time" when Maggie is at school.

We went "antiquing" one Sunday afternoon and found some bargains. (Well, in our eyes anyway.) We went to a neighboring town called Eldridge where they had pumpkins, apples, a few vendors and much to my delight, three barns FULL of antiques! We got a desk (perfect for Rob's office and his laptop) for $1.75. We cleaned it up, painted the top black and it looks great! We also got a stool (not an antique by any means, but useful) for $2.00. I took the nasty fabric off, put some new on and voila` new seat that is perfect for the computer! We also got a metal and wood kindergarten school chair that I love, the girls do too. I want to go back and get a few other things I saw.

We hope that this blog finds everyone well (if anyone reads it :) ) and we wish you a Happy Halloween!